Tag: wisdom

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Taking Up Golf after Sixty

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Soothe the Soul and Vex the Intellect

Oh dear! I seem to have shanked one into Lord Vader’s BMW.

I’ve spent most of my life avoiding golf. I’ve never been very sports-minded, probably because neither of my parents were. Mom thought sports were trivial, and Dad carried a pronounced and physically limiting limp, the result of being struck by anti-aircraft flak in the belly of a B-17 during World War II. My best, and perhaps only, sporting triumph was a fluke home-run during a pick-up softball game on the last day of 8th grade. As to golf, the prospect of chasing little balls around in an electric cart with a bunch of yahoos in gay-palette pants and silly shoes didn’t hold a lot of appeal for me. Continue reading

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Stupifyin’ Jones and the Improbable Ascent of Donald Trump

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Al Capp’s iconic Stupefyin’ Jones from Lil Abner

Writing Fiction in Post-Truth America

The soul of my creativity, such as it is, has been thoroughly stupified, and not in a good way, by the election of Donald Trump to the office of president of the United States. I’m serious. I don’t know why. I haven’t accomplished a damn thing since November 9th. Every day is the same. Walk and feed the dog. Make a delicious espresso beverage. Turn on the computer. Click on the daily news feed. There is Donald Trump’s gigantic orange visage mocking everything I believe in. Fuck me!

Trump’s election is an embarrassment to the nation I love. It’s not enough that he is an idiot, an unsophisticated lout with the diplomatic sensibilities of a skinhead and the verbal skills of a learning-disabled third grader. He is a liar to boot. In fact, he is a liar of monumental proportions in a ‘post truth’ society.

I don’t know how this happened. I’ve been reading everyone else’s idea of how it happened, and I’m convinced they don’t know either. It’s certainly not Trump’s fault. He’s an idiot. It’s not Hillary Clinton’s fault. She’s too smart to be sucked into Trump’s game. I guess you could say that no one called him out on his bullshit, but a lot of people really did, and it didn’t seem to matter. Continue reading

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Bean’s Supper

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greyhound

Anthropomorphism: an innate tendency of human psychology

I cook for my dog, Bean. He eats almost as well as I do. I think this makes me an exemplary human being. Bean seems to agree because he follows me around adoringly from the time he gets up in the morning till he goes down for his first nap 20 minutes later.

Every three days I make a pot of rice and chicken. I cook the rice in chicken broth, which is a by-product of my Tuesday crockpot roasted chicken. I supplement the rice and chicken with additional broth, high quality kibble, and an assortment of flavor enhancers like hard-boiled egg, steamed broccoli, baby food, sweet potato, and an occasional chunk of beef, just to keep things interesting. Bean likes this routine a lot when he is on his feed—more often than not since I started going to all this effort. Continue reading

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Poverty Is Not a Crime Either

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Poverty is not a crime.Socially Responsible Themes in A Cup of Pending.

Coming to Grips with Poverty

I have rather a lot to say about poverty and homelessness in Cuppa. Some would probably say, too much, while others, not enough. Depends where they fall on the spectrum of wealth distribution.

Fun Fact: most of us are a lot lower on the scale than we imagine.

I know that I personally am a lot lower than I used to be, and the precipitous slide has prompted me to give up my Voldemort Republicanism for something more egalitarian and charitable. That’s just me, though, everyone reacts according to their own particular sensibilities and beliefs. Continue reading

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Writing Tips Are for Suckers!

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fountain pen, writingDo Long-suffering Bastards Write Better than Happy Schmucks?

I don’t write or post much about the craft of writing for several reasons:

  1. There are as many ways to write as there are writers, and we all have to develop the process that works for us. What works for me will probably not be useful for you, and vice versa.
  2. So much has already been said about the subject, a great deal of it from really good writers, that I can’t imagine I have very much to add to the subject.
  3. I have an abiding belief that writers, good ones at least, are born rather than made. William Faulkner agrees. (See below.)  Any tips that I might offer would be contrary to this belief, and, to the extent they looked like encouragement, would seduce those not born to the art to pour still more dreck into the growing flood in which I have to compete for attention. I’m just not interested.

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Top Places to Buy Inventory for Your Next Garage Sale

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garage sale items, junk, vintage stuffMoving is Such Sweet Sorrow

No, it’s not. It’s a pain in the ass!

We’re moving. Not right away, but soon enough. We’re sure to be moving into a smaller place, so getting ready to move is all about downsizing and offloading. A garage sale is in our immediate future. That means going through all the stuff we own and making the decision: keep, sell, or discard. It’s not so much that the individual decisions are hard to make. It’s that there are so many of them to be made.

We own a lot of stuff. Before I decided to try writing for a living, I brought home regular paychecks. Weekends, we would go out and spend those checks accumulating stuff to store at home. Some things store better than others, and, when it comes time to sell off your storage problems, some things are more attractive to the people who show up in your driveway to beat you out of a nickel. Continue reading

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The Perfect Martini – Both of Them

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A philosophical guide to (and recipes for) the most sophisticated, sublime, and American of cocktails

martini-19324_1280There are probably as many perfect martini recipes as there are martini drinkers—an unusual state of affairs when you consider that the drink has only two basic ingredients. It is hard to imagine that something so simple could have such a wide range of outcomes—from nearly divine to truly appalling.

Conceptually, the perfect martini is a fairly static and well-established thing. In execution, however, perfection becomes mercurial, ethereal, elusive . . . impossible even. Continue reading

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Stephen Hawking Shouldn’t Quit His Day Job

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Arguably Smart Isn’t Arguably Correct

Earth against a nebula

Curiosity Killed Schrodinger’s Cat!

I watched the inaugural episode of Discovery Channel’s series, Curiosity. In it, Dr. Steven Hawking, noted theoretical physicist, postulated that the immutable laws of nature prove that there is no God. I do not doubt that Hawking is a brilliant man who has contributed vast new insights in the fields of physics and cosmology, but, after watching this show, I have to conclude that he has left a lot of air in these particular postulations, and most of that air is hot. Continue reading

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The Examined Life

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Marilyn Monroe statue

Iconic Serendipity or Perfectly Staged Temptation?

It’s Good to be Catholic If You Don’t Try Too Hard

The unexamined life may not be worth living, as Socrates suggested, but it sure is easier than second guessing your every motivation. Maybe it’s not exactly what Socrates had in mind, but for the dutiful Catholic a regular examination of conscience is part of the defining regimen. It’s something we do before we go to confession. This means a thorough scrutiny of the things we have done that we shouldn’t have and the things we didn’t do that we should have, as well as the reasons we did or didn’t do them. As you can imagine there is enormous potential for inner conflict in this process. Continue reading

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Coffee and Donuts with the Faithful – an excerpt

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This is an excerpt from A Cup of Pending, which I released last year. I am posting it here in response to a prompt from my friends over at Studio30Plus. The prompt was profundity and/or wisdom. In my whole book, I only used the word wisdom once, and this is it. Enjoy. Oh, and click the Studio30Plus link and check it out. It’s a wonderful site, full of wonderful writers. You’re sure to see something you like.

dontu, doughnut, pastry,

This is a much better looking donut than you usually find in church halls after Sunday services. I find it irresistible, don’t you?

The Wisdom of Job?

The pastor sauntered over to the group. He was beaming and resplendent and looking, Cliff decided, for some attention of which to become the center. His gaze fell upon Cliff, just then having another nibble of doughnut, and his expression froze in place, not a millimeter different from the look of saintly warmth he had carried across the room, but whatever life had animated it before had dissipated like so much smoke.

“I see we have a guest,” he said.

He thrust a brave hand at Cliff who dusted crumbs off his fingers with a napkin and took it. “Welcome, friend. Folks call me Doctor Paul. I’m the pastor here. And you are?” Continue reading