Hillbillies, Hobos and Halfwits

Monday May 27^th, 2013 – Fox Lake, IL

   It’s Memorial Day, and I’m in a reflective mood. The weather today in the Chicago area really rots, and it’s ruining people’s mood. I can feel it. Barbecues are being cancelled, and I sensed an ominous vibe from quite a few people as I ran a few errands today. I tried to make sense of it all.

   I’ve been in a funk myself of late, and that’s never good. I feel myself sliding down the rails of the abyss, and I know it’s going to be hell to crawl back out. No matter what anyone says, it’s the lack of money that’s causing 99% of it, and there are all kinds of tangled wires that are the cause.

   It stinks and I wish it weren’t that way, but then I think of the people in Oklahoma who’ve just had their whole lives swept away in seconds and it makes me shut my yap. That’s a horrible spot to be in, and what’s left of my heart goes out to every one of them – toothless hillbillies or not.

   This world is full of the toothless, clueless, hopeless and shameless. There are hillbillies, hobos and halfwits, and we’re all thrown together to fight our way through the jungle. We either squeak out a way to survive the madness, or we’re wiped out like bugs on a windshield. It’s a cruel gig.

   The whole war thing has never made sense to me either. I have the utmost respect for all of the brave souls who had the courage to give their lives, but the concept of war itself makes me puke. We’ve been doing it as long as we’ve been a species, but I still can’t see anything good about it.

   Why do we have to kill each other for any reason? I know I sound like a bleeding heart hippie, but I really mean it. I’ve always said I have a ton of people I can’t stand, but I don’t want to kill any of them. I might not want to be within 500 miles of them, but they can go live away from me and screw up their own lives. I would like to think the karma train will run them over eventually.

   Look at all the sadness Memorial Day brings to millions of Americans who lost someone in the service of the country. There are parentless kids because of it, and lonely spouses and all kinds of ugliness that I just don’t see a legitimate reason for. I know war is about money in the end, but if that’s the only way to get it then I’ll stay broke. Someone at the top is missing what life is about.

   Sometimes I feel like I’m the one missing what life is about. In my warped little pea brain, I’ve always thought life was supposed to be happy and fulfilling. We should cheer people up at every possible opportunity, and that’s what I’ve always tried to do. Sometimes it has worked out great, but others it feels like I totally missed the happy boat. Of late it’s been the missed the boat way.

   One thing that really cheered me up today was a note from a wonderful comedian named Beth Donahue – Weedman. What a fireball she is, and I’ve always been a huge fan. She tells it like it is, but unfortunately not everyone can handle that kind of honesty. I know. I’m like that as well.

   Beth and I have both been around about the same time, and we’ve both done comedy and radio along the way. We both have our fans, and both have our detractors. Unfortunately, neither of us has figured out that pesky success formula or chased it very hard. We chose to do things our way and that’s not always the way to win the approval of those difficult to figure out ‘powers that be’.

   I have all the respect in the world for Beth, and the others like her that never seem to reap what they so richly deserve. I feel the same way about the troops who gave it all up so rich politicians can get richer on the blood of the grunts that did the dirty work. This planet is a cosmic carnival.

Beth Donahue-Weedman is one of the funniest comedians in America!

Go see her at Nashville Zanies on June 2nd, 2013! http://www.zanies.com

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Tweaks And Quirks

Monday January 28^th, 2013 – Fox Lake, IL

   Everyone on this planet is at least a wee bit crazy to a certain degree, and I have yet to hear of or personally meet any exceptions. We’ve all got tweaks and quirks of some sort, and it becomes an issue of whether we choose to either embrace or fight them. Whatever the case, they’re there.

I freely admit to several my own, even though I haven’t decided whether I’m going to embrace or fight. All I know is certain things get under my skin even when I know they shouldn’t. We all have our own individual demons, and I guess that’s what makes life interesting – or maddening.

One of my longest running tweaks has been the insane need to have my gasoline purchases end up at a round number. I’ll try to always hit it on an even dollar amount, but in a pinch I can settle for .50 or .25. What I absolutely CANNOT deal with is an ‘.01’. It drives me out of my mind.

I know in the scheme of life it shouldn’t make even the slightest difference – but it totally does. I can’t stand going over the even dollar amount, and often I’ll keep pumping to the next one even if my tank is already full. I’ll get out a gas can from my trunk and fill that, and if I blow it again I find other cars and top off their tanks. I know full well this is meaningless, but I can’t get over it.

I can’t be the only one to have this be an issue, as I swear some gas pumps don’t even have the ability to stop on the ‘.00’. I’ve had hair trigger pumps that have been impossible to master and it has become a lifelong crusade to avoid them like the plague. Give me accuracy or give me death.

Another deep dent in my personal can is having to wait at a red light longer than those going in the other direction while there is an arrow for them to turn left. This frustrates me to the point of full on mouth foamage, even though I know there’s not one thing I can do but wait for it to pass.

I know I should just turn up my radio and whistle a tune, but it goes deeper than that. I feel like I’ve chosen the wrong life path whenever this happens, and those going the other direction are on the road to success while my opportunities slowly leak away like the water in the baggie holding the goldfish I won at the carnival when I was nine. Is there a pill I can take to make this stop?

Again, I don’t know why this particular situation should be so annoying to me but it is. It goes on every day, and if it were an even split I’d be a lot better with it but it isn’t. I’ve counted  how many times I’ve gotten the arrow in my direction versus the times I’ve had to wait and it’s never been close to being even. Usually it’s about ten to one against me, and that makes it even worse.

I keep thinking the time I have to wait for the other side to go dips into my cosmic rhythm and causes me to be even more off track than I already am. How do I know I wouldn’t miss meeting the woman of my dreams by just a few seconds because I was stuck waiting at a traffic signal?

This is all wasted energy, and sadly I totally know it. In a perfect world, we’d all be able to get over these eccentric issues, but everyone has them and they’re not going away any time soon. It’s a matter of choice as to whether anyone embraces or fights, and I still haven’t made up my mind.