Why Oh Why

     There's a cowboy bar in the canyon that I visit every now and then. The last two times I was there I had conversations with racists. Yesterday, I was talking to an older man with one of those pot bellies that forms around the groin and works it's way up. I was drinking a beer when he came in. I felt his negativity right off, but I dismissed it, and talked to him anyway. 
     He told me he was from LA originally, but moved north when things started to change in eighty-four. Change is code word for too many immigrants. 
     He said he grew up on a chicken farm nearby. He was wearing a cowboy hat, and had a long gray beard. It didn't look like too much of a stretch.
     He asked me where I grew up. I told him Montebello. His eyes dropped, and was about to say something negative, but stopped short and held his tongue. I could tell he didn't approve of Montebello. I've seen it before. There are a lot of Mexicans in Montebello and Mexicans are beneath some white folks. 
     The man said other things that made me think, okay I get it, he's a racist. 
     On my drive home I thought about the man. I wondered why he felt superior to other people. I mean, really. He grew up on a chicken farm.

Change

     I've been having interesting dreams. I always have interesting dreams, but I don't usually remember them. Last night I dreamed that my sister fell in love with a goddess. She was a full-bodied woman and somewhat tolerant of men. Her father, who was sitting next to her, had four nipples. His nipples were an inch high and flat at the tips. They looked more like stumpy otters. He had other qualities that reminded me of the devil. He and his daughter were suspicious in nature, I can tell you that. 
     I was thinking about life the other day, in the most trivial manner. I was thinking that we come into this world and most of us have no idea why we're here, or how we got here. Some of us search for answers. Some of us turn to God for answers. Others are more scientific about it and still others don't care. And at the end of it all, we die. It happens to everybody. It's a strange thing this life. It's a horrible place to be if you have trouble with change. And I definitely have trouble with change. That's my suffering. Watching things change and not always for the better. 
     I was driving down the boulevard the other day and I realized that the number of stop lights had increased dramatically in my short lifetime. People are fearful of something. Death and change, or speed and accidents, or just unimpeded travel. Control is fear. Fear is control. Accepting change is a work in progress. It should be easy. Change is freedom. Freedom is life. Life is death and then freedom all over again with the answers you were searching for in life.
     

Conspiracies

     I'm a sucker for a good conspiracy. JFK, 911, Vegas, are just a few conspiracy theories that I subscribe to. Pearl Harbor is another.
     Though not conspiracies, I believe O.J. is innocent and Michael Jackson wasn't a child molester. I wouldn't normally admit that in public, but both men were acquitted, so I'm not entirely mistaken.
     Where I draw the line is when people say the moon landings never happened. I think these conspiracies are nuts. Not only are they nuts, they're offensive to me, because I was a witness to the moon landings. Television would never lie, haha.
     There were things that struck me as odd at the time. The manner in which the astronauts moved about the moon. The shadows. The footage. The fact that there was any footage at all was amazing to me. How did they do that? I wondered. The whole event was incredible to me. Not to be missed, that's for sure.
     But when you think about the complexity of fooling a nation, the world, with a moon landing, I'm not sure it's possible. There are too many variables involved. You'd have to emulate a rocket taking off into space. A moon landing, a moon orbiter, Cape Canaveral, a splash down, astronauts being quarantined (that's not so hard), interviews with astronauts for years and years afterwards. I think it would be too difficult to fabricate. Plus, someone would break their silence and spill the beans if it wasn't true. People blab. They're braggers. It would be next to impossible to keep everybody quiet. 
     Another thing is money. There was a lot of money to be made by the aerospace industry. They're not going to fake it, they're going to make it, and sell it. Even if it doesn't work. 

Justify

  
     I met a gambler the other night. He was going to plop down five-hundred dollars on Justify to win the Kentucky Derby. Gamblers are weird dudes. They're optimists. They're forever chasing a hunch. 
     This gambler pulled into the bar I was playing music at. It was about 1:30 in the morning when he came in. He was an older man. In his sixties. I respect people who go out at night. But it does strike me as odd at times when they come in late. 
     This man was different, no doubt. He had a big head, and I couldn't stop staring at it. He was a confident man. He was convinced that Justify was going to win. I thought he was on the right track. Justify is a great horse. But for some reason I told him Bolt D' Oro was going to win. I immediately regretted my words after saying them. Deep down I knew I was wrong, but it was early in the morning and I didn't feel like correcting myself. Instead, I grabbed my guitars and said good-night.
     Justify did win the derby. I hope the man followed his instincts. I'd sure hate to be the reason why he lost five-hundred dollars. 

Number One Or Number Two

     I wonder if there are countries in the world where number one is number two and number two is number one. I'd hate to be a taxi driver in one of those countries. You pick up a tourist and few minutes into their fare they tell you they need to use the restroom. Number one or number two? You ask. Number two, but you think it's number one, so you take your time. 
     I wonder how long we've been using the number system? It seems it never goes away. You can be eighty-three years old and turn to your wife, friend, or lover and say I have to go to the bathroom. And they might say, number one or number two. You look at them funny, thinking you're not a kid anymore, number two ...
     
     
     
     

Mansion

     I have an idea for a new social media platform. It's called Mansion. The goal is to make enough friends to build a mansion. 
     When you make your first friend you get an icon of a man with a shovel. With your second friend a man with a pick-axe shows up, and so on. A couple of thousand friends later and you get an one bedroom apartment. And so it goes. Until, one day, maybe you're living in a tract-home in the suburbs. 
     The part of the game that is not revealed is that the algorithm would be designed so it's nearly impossible to get a mansion. It's more like a dream than a realty. There's no old money. Nepotism won't help you. Sure, there will be a few people who get mansions, but just enough people to make the game believable. Most folks will be living in a trailer park in hurricane country, or a studio apartment in Jersey.

     

The Unbreakable Piñata.

     I finished a twelve hundred and eighty-seven page book and was unsatisfied with the ending. I don't regret reading the book, but come on. I understand, endings can be difficult. Saying good-bye can be difficult. But, when you read a long book, a book that didn't need to be as long as it was, you deserve a good ending. 
     I had a sinister thought the other day. I had the idea to invent an unbreakable piñata. It's similar to the mindset behind the trick birthday candle, but on another level. 
     When I was a kid there was no cutting corners when it came to the piñata. You got blindfolded. There were strict rules that had to be followed. You only got a certain number of swings. 
     I remember trying to cheat when the blindfold wasn't put on right just to survive. I could see out of the corner of the blindfold just enough to take a few good hacks.
     Kids today have it easy. Sometimes they don't even get blindfolded and they get as many swings as they want. The fun of the game is trickery. You're blindfolded and swinging wildly, and being mocked by the adults when you miss. When else can a parent mock their child? It's an opportunity.
     The unbreakable piñata levels the playing field. You don't need a blindfold, hahaha!!!