Please tell me if this gets cut down to 30 seconds. I always get the full version of everything I upload. If it's not working anymore I'll find another host for these shows. This is one of the funniest FM&M programmes ever made. I've been looking forward to sharing this with you.

Love that cow picture below. It reminds me of the cover of the Pink Floyd album, Atom Heart Mother. It's so sun-shiney, so bucolic.

Back to Chateau Creekside in the supernatural Hamlet of Hickwick, my friend the reality TV hostess in-training has had more experiences with 'things that go bump in the day' and go absolutely wild at night. This time, however, the ethereal music was heard by six other witnesses - house guests of hers from the media who were in the area covering the Baseball event. She wants out. And so do her two cats who have been spooked into feline hysteria by this nearby town's ambiance.

So, we went down together. Yes, the Squabbler is back home. He came to retrieve his daughter, Daphne Sunshine, who had escaped from her cage last week. Apparently, the cats had torn open a large bag of catnip and spread its contents on the living room rug. My friend has not the physical ability to clean up such messes. The Squabbler fell to his hands and knees and stuck his - face? - if one can call it that - into the rug, and began rolling in it. Note: Keep him away from the catnip.

A well-meaning (?) church lady had told her that she was oppressed by a dark entity, and this understandably has her rather upset. I laughed and said, I'm the only dark entity in your life right now, as the Squabbler purred on the carpet.

Leaving matters of demonic oppression to rank amateurs is criminal, I think, and people are busybodies who take it upon themselves to speak authoritatively of matters unknown to them. I told my friend to talk to a priest.

Living in the Hamlet of Hickwick does not seem to affect my sons and their mother in any adverse way, but of course they are in the populated area while my friend is in that hallowed countryside of mist and disappearing-reappearing roads. In other words, it's not the best place to live for some, particularly the impressionable.

But, her house guests had been awakened by what they thought may have been a computer. On second hearing, it was not. I am reminded of several stories by H.P. Lovecraft in which music is featured. Previously, the vastation had appeared to be an ordinary extraterrestrial event of the type Hickwick is famous for, but now I'm not too sure she doesn't have something more interesting going on.

We shall have to get the daffy clowns from the Discovery Channel in there with their frappicinos and their cameras. Oh Lord - It is too funny.

The Squabbler was no help at all, being tranquilized. And I have still not had the pleasure of hearing this thing for myself. I may sleep there tonight, just on the off chance. I am a music lover, after all.

You people who live in cities, you think the country is beautiful. Well, it is. But it is no less treacherous. Things go on within these barns that would curl your hair, and if you were in straightened circumstances that might not be so bad. There are doors within these woods to places from which you would not easily return, and walking the countryside at night requires more than flashlight and rifle but also a large pile of nerve. More, I can tell you, than is dreamt of in your philosophy. Reason does go out the window unless you reason well.

When you hear a thing go bump in the day, and absolutely wild in the night, the reason is what it is. That much is true. But the reason will sometimes make very little sense to you unless you know that sense is far greater than senses.

When you find yourself inexplicably standing on a lonesome train track, with the ghostly train approaching to run you down, do you say to yourself, "I'm just going to stand here because this must be just a dream?" I should say not. It makes sense to step off the track and live to wonder all you like at the cause, rather than die because of the effect.

That's it for me this morning. Bye-bye, ta-ta, fare thee well. It's a great day for... well - anything.    

There was a movie called Miller's Crossing that came out a few years ago. I saw it. There was a time when I really really liked it. If I try to watch it now I like it not as much because I'm a different person now than I was then, but I appreciate its artistry. There are many films like that. The memory of certain scenes is unspoiled by subsequent experience and subsequent changes in my thinking and perspective. Among these scenes is one in which actress Marcia Gay Hardin asks actor Gabriel Byrne, "What'cha chewin' over?" in a rather sultry, appealing tone. And this reminds me of the word ruminating - to ruminate - because that's precisely what the word means, to chew over or to chew again, as a cow chewing the cud.

I remember it well. She was sitting - well, half reclining - in a bed, looking oh-so-sexy in a domestic sort of way in a slip. Really, it's her hair that does the work.

When did I learn that cows are ruminative animals? I remember the very moment I made that connection, though I don't remember the occasion. I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I was an adult, but I may as well reveal something even more shocking. For most of my life I never questioned the incorrect idea in my mind that a wheelbarrow was a barrel with wheels - which would make it a wheelbarrel - and it is not. Well, I won a big Spelling Bee when I was but a wee lad, and it is fortunate I was not asked that particular word.

Oh bother - now I'm going to have to look up the origin of barrow. Do you see what I do for you people? Oh the sacrifices I have made for the White Lodge...

Well it's a very descriptive word, isn't it? Ruminative, that is. A cow has three stomachs, or five, or some number greater than one at any rate, and literally digests its rather rough food by chewing, swallowing, and throwing-up into the mouth and re-chewing it - several times, apparently. I think I may have done the same at several college parties back in the day, but the cow doesn't attach any notion of sickness to the act, as we do. I had known this about cows, of course - that they are designed to digest their food this way - but I did not know that the process was called ruminating until... well - relatively recently.

If you ever begin to think I'm very smart please remember that.

Anyhoo, to think again and again the same thoughts is also to ruminate. In that case what we are throwing-up into our minds and re-digesting is not grass but thought. I also know that when we think again and again the same thoughts it is not necessarily beneficial. It can be quite the contrary. Problems don't tend to get solved that way, as the same mind that created the problem is not likely to know the solution no matter how many times it chews on it.

So I've been ruminating on this matter. If you were to ask me right now, "What'cha chewin' over?" I would refer you to the top of this page so that you can re-read or read again what you have already read - and that will be my answer. 

Well, I just lost a post. I availed myself of the advanced life-credit feature in order to regain the time I lost writing it. I think it's worth the small fee. It's the interminable waiting on hold that frustrates me. I think that kind of thing frustrates everybody.

Please wait, while we calculate the exact date and time of your death.

They never have good music. This morning it was a Ray Coniff Singers version of Nick Cave's "Up Jumped The Devil."

Oh my oh my what a wretched life

I was born on the day that my poor Mama died

I was cut from her belly with a Stanley knife

My Daddy did a jig with a drunk midwife...

There's something disconcerting about one's favorite obscure recording artists become popular. It was some time in the late 80's I was in NY to hear a youngster no older that 10 walking down Chambers Street singing "Psycho Killer." Qu'est-ce que c'est. 

At last there comes the moment when the recorded voice returns to say, One hour has been added to your life. Thank you for using Life Credit.

Of course you'll have to call again to be credited for the time you have wasted on hold, but it's the principle of the thing as far as I'm concerned.

Time speeds up when you get older. Tell me that's not true. But it is true.

Why is that?

Well, the adult mind has more to remember, more to regret, and more to project by way of expectations on the imagined future. Now, we may know intellectually that there is no such thing as "The Future" - it is imaginary, but this head knowledge seems to do nothing to alter the effect of time shortening.

Of course there is a Leonard Cohen album called "The Future," but that's different.

To be a child means, among other things, that there is no such thing as wasted time. Children don't think that way, being more inclined to live 'in the present moment,' and having therefore a different perception of the passage of time. Hence, the so-called 'endless summers' of youth.

Summer flies right by for an old geezer like me, of course. But my older friends - guys in their 70's and 80's - tell me that advanced old age seems to have the effect of slowing one's perception of time's passing down again. They offer no theories on why that may be, perhaps because they are wise enough to know it's better not to pretend they are wise.

Ah yes, one day I hope to reach that point. I'm at the age of knowing everything a little bit and nothing a whole lot. OK - whatever.

It is human nature to accuse others of your own faults.

I'm going to type that again.

It is human nature to accuse others of your own faults.

I accuse people of selfishness on a regular basis. Well, I hear that the middle finger of my left hand indicates how selfish I was when I was born, and the middle finger on my right hand indicates how selfish I am now. The middle finger on my right hand is longer than the middle finger on my left hand, and on both hands the middle finger is the most prominent digit. According to some, that means I'm quite selfish. It may also mean I have a God-given talent for obscene gestures.

It is human nature to accuse others of your own faults.

The politician who screams the loudest about corruption is usually quite corrupt. We've seen that over and over.

The one who complains about people who gossip is usually a gossip himself.

I can however speak with great authority on subjects like selfishness, having been selfish, and subjects like sin, having sinned.

I've never really identified with the Boy Scout - the one who has never left the straight and narrow path to salvation. It seems to me that such a person simply lacks imagination and is probably a bit dull at parties. No, it was the winding, treacherous path to redemption rather than the straight and narrow to salvation that I seemed to choose, so it stands to reason that I am attracted to people who have come along those same dangerous highways.

Wrap it up, Squabbler.

Well, if one has robbed banks, does it follow therefore that he is being disingenuous to cease robbing banks? According to our culture, the answer is yes. There really can be no such thing as sin when one believes he is the victim of circumstance and without free will. Our culture delights in its victims behaving themselves and staying victims, and is invested in eliminating the concept of sin so that nobody may aspire to anything greater than whatever Hollywood-glorified muck he happens to be swimming in.

In other words, in the culture there is no concept of redemption. The only sin they acknowledge is hypocrisy - and that is unforgivable. As you go about the business of your too-short week you will witness numerous examples of this.

Now, I have to go because I only purchased an extra hour of life to make up for the time I lost writing this morning's accidentally deleted post. It appears I will be with you for one more day - possibly more. But it is best to keep one's expectations in the moment. Life credits can bring you only so far.

I was out and about this morning. I noticed absolutely no public nudity in my travels. Very odd. I think it's a frightening trend. As a matter of fact I believe it is one of the signs prophesied in The Emoticonicon or Smiley Face Book of the Dead that we are near the end of the world.

It's complicated. If I remember correctly the curious absence of public nudity indicates that we are in the Fifth Age of Alfred. That's either near to the end of the world or near to the end of the using the word 'impact' as a verb. I don't remember which. I'm hoping it is the latter.

There are quite a few clothing optional beaches where I come from. Clubs too. I'll betcha people's attitudes about that kind of thing are formed very early in their lives, probably as babies. I don't think people easily change their ideas about showing off their own bodies.

This area doesn't seem to have any - ah - places like that.

I'm watching "A Face in the Crowd." Patricia Neal. She is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my entire life - today. Show me a woman in a movie made during the last 20 or 30 years who has anything close to her presence. Useless Barbie dolls... I'll see if I can capture a screen shot for you. She's so gorgeous she just brought a tear to my eye. It may be a stroke.

 

She looks better moving, I admit.

It's a good movie. One of those you'll see. I used to watch The Million Dollar Movie on one of the NY channels when I was a kid. Maybe it was a Connecticut channel. Same difference. Either way, it was possible to turn on a television in those days without throwing up.

This DVD came in a package of so-called controversial films. Along with it was one of my favorites, "Bad Day at Black Rock" with Spencer Tracy. "The Fury," "The Blackboard Jungle," a few others. $1.00 at a garage sale, unopened. Do I know how to shop, or what?

I suppose anything with a message is controversial. I don't know who thinks that way. Perhaps people who don't know that everything we see is chock full of messages. Or people who paid a university to call them experts in doing nothing more than pointing out the obvious.

Usually the message is populist or egalitarian. That's fine. It used to be that people who called themselves liberals were interested in defending the freedom of speech. If a film is considered controversial that's usually what it's about. Somebody kicking against the pricks. That goes way back to a time before some of you were born. I know it's not just women my age and a little older who read this.

They say times change. Rubbish. Time never changes. People change.

Well, this one is about how the media manipulate the mass consciousness. 'Twas ever thus. Being told what to think and how to think about it is nothing new. Falling for it is nothing new either.

Hook, line, and... stinker.

They would plug a device right into your heads, given half a chance. Wait a minute - they already did - all you Nano heads.

I have a drawer in my kitchen I call the junk drawer. It contains several screwdrivers, a hammer, some nails, some screws. Although these tools are indispensable on certain occasions, I have never once entertained the thought of picking up a hammer to drive a nail into my head. You don't walk down the street with a hammer. You don't drive your car with a hammer. It belongs in the junk drawer until you need it. Hand-held computers and communication devices? - Ditto. A man makes a tool to be used, not to be used by it.

And clothes are made to be worn on the body for protection from the elements. When the elements are not particularly hostile they can be removed. Sure they can. If it becomes cold we can put more clothes on. If it becomes hot we can remove them. There comes a point where it's too hot even without clothes and we can't remove our skins. You know I like it hot. Today is not one of those hot days. The sun is hiding. But it looks as if public nudity is not the fashion of the day in any event.

It's a good day to watch controversial movies, though. I've done extensive research on The Emoticonicon, or Smiley Face Book of the Dead. I was only kidding earlier when I referred to my faulty memory on the subject. I was being folksy. I was being quaint. Don't you hate that? In reality, I am the world's foremost expert on the subject of the mysterious Emoticonicon. Some say it's a myth. Others prefer 'ms.' But I happen to know the Squabbler possesses one of the three copies in existence. I'm going to write about the secrets of this legendary book - later.

Right now I'm going to bring back an old custom that I think requires a redux because we know there's nothing 'new' or original anymore. It's called 'streaking.' There's a crowd of about 50,000 humorless, fully-clothed people gathering about two blocks away from me right now to watch a retired professional Baseball player make a speech. They are humorless because they just paid people like me $50 each to park their cars. I reckon a little public nudity will perk 'em right up.

The truth is, I've lived here since '94 and I've never seen one of these 'Induction' events. I may take a stroll down there with my hammer in a little while and see what 50,000 people looks like all bunched in together so they can smell each other's hair.